De Israëlische schrijver Aharon Appelfeld werd geboren op 16 februari 1932 in Sadhora in de Oekraïne. Zie ook alle tags voor Aharon Appelfeld op dit blog.

Uit: Until the Dawn’s Light

“After a week of displacements, Otto stopped pestering her. He slept and barely poked his head out of his coat. Blanca was upset: perhaps his dreams were showing him what she wanted to keep from his sight. She thought that despite her efforts he had figured something out, and that the dream would turn his guess into a certainty—­the thought disturbed her. She buried her face in her hands, the way her mother had done when headaches assailed her.
Otto sank ever deeper into sleep, and his face was relaxed. What she would do, and where the trains would lead them, Blanca still didn’t know. The summer light was full. The sky was blue, and the fields were yellow and spread out over the low hills. The bright view brought to mind the long vacations she had taken with her parents. They were so far away now, it was as if those vacations had never taken place.
When Otto woke from his sleep he was pale, and he immediately started vomiting. In his infancy he used to vomit, but since then he hadn’t complained about stomachaches or vomited. Now he shuddered in her arms as if fleeing from a nightmare.
“We’ll get off here,” said Blanca, and they got off right away.
It was a small village, with wooden houses scattered amid ­greenery.
“This is it,” she said, as if they had reached a safe haven.”